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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26550595">Shoemaker's Children</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion'>lferion</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Iron and Light [28]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe, Challenge Response, Community: fan_flashworks, Drabble, Dwarf Culture &amp; Customs, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Poetry, Points of View, Quest of Erebor, Shoes, Smithcraft, Socks, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, kingship, toes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:13:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,455</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26550595</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>1. Thorin makes and mends<br/>2. Bilbo contemplates the need for foot-coverings<br/>3. Bofur sees Thorin's toe peeping from the sock<br/>4. Bifur is more perceptive than many (including himself) give him credit for<br/>5. Dwalin would never have thought he would have <em>feelings</em> about toes<br/>6. Balin contemplates the Company<br/>7. Bombur watches Thorin set a rivet. It pins more than one might think.<br/>8. Gandalf contemplates embodiment</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Thorin Oakenshield &amp; Thorin's Company</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Iron and Light [28]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/68949</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Drabbling in Middle-Earth, fan_flashworks</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Shoemaker's Children</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>These pieces were all written for Fan Flashworks. The specific challenges and links to the original posts are in the end-note.</p>
<p>Part of Iron and Light. Takes place starting near the beginning of the Quest for Erebor, ending in Rivendell.</p>
<p>Many thanks to Athena, Icka, Runa, Zana and Morgynleri for encouragement and sanity-checking.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <strong>Thorin</strong>
  </p>
</div><hr/>
<p>Men, for the most part, made things for Men, though they would sell to anyone. Elves seldom made for any but themselves, and sold to others almost as rarely. Dwarves, on the other hand, knew well the necessity of shaping their wares to whatever market might be open to them, however little they liked it.</p>
<p>Thorin was known as a metalsmith, a blacksmith skilled at shaping iron and steel to both use and beauty. Redsmithing too: bronze and brass and copper useful and sought-after singly and in combination with harder metals. There was call for cold work - whitesmithing of tin, pewter, lead, and the like, though little use for more difficult and subtle things such as nickel, zinc, aluminium or titanium. That he could work in precious metals - silver, mithril, platinum and gold - went without saying, though there was even less opportunity for jewel-smithing.</p>
<p>He had been Made for leadership and smithcraft, but he did not scorn to turn his hand to whatever work might be needful. Needle and thread, awl and sinew were not strangers in his fingers, though many who were not Dwarves would be surprised to discover that fact. (Even among Dwarves there were those who seemed to regret that their Lords should be reduced to such plain and common crafts as cobbling their own shoes and nalbinding socks. Thorin had no patience with that attitude. Need, use, beauty — any or all reason enough for Making. And none of those things was any respecter of rank.)</p>
<p>Last evening, Balin had drawn the Company into a new and closer unity with the tale of Azanulbizar, and this evening saw that displayed in easier discourse between the family groups, less of a division between Longbeard and Broadbeam, Line of Durin and Durin's Folk, Erebor and Ered Luin. Everyone had some small-craft or mending to hand; even master Baggins had out his tablets -- notebook, as he called it, and it was a proper book, not wax or slates or even vellum pages oiled and painted to wipe clean for re-use with a properly prepared cloth, the writing held fixed and unsmudged until that point. No, Tharkun's Burglar had a bound book of new blank pages to record his thoughts as an ordinary object. He did seem to be making good use of the treasure, his hand neat and small.</p>
<p>Thorin laid out his roll of small-tools and mending kit, and set to repairing his footwear. It would do no one any good for something that could so easily be fixed go un-mended, and be a hazard to travel or battle thereby.</p><hr/>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <strong>Bilbo</strong>
  </p>
</div><hr/>
<p>Bilbo was surprised, one evening after an early supper when there was still plenty of light in the sky, to see Thorin unfasten his boots after collecting a rolled bundle from his pack. Boots were rather a mystery to the Hobbit, and while he would certainly have denied worrying or wondering over the nature of Dwarf feet, seeing a toe peep through a hole in the odd bag that went between boot and foot — sock, they were called socks — was a relief. Not so very different from himself in that regard. When Thorin put his mended boot down and tugged off the sock to attend to the hole, the need for such things as boots and socks became clear to Bilbo. For all the wealth of hair on their heads and chins (and chests, backs and thighs too, judging from inadvertent glimpses of various of them attending nature's call or making ablutions) Dwarf feet apparently had no more hair than a new-born faunt, and as for the soles…. Well, Thorin's were certainly broad and shapely enough, but no thicker than the skin of his palms it seemed. Oddly vulnerable in fact. </p>
<p>That night Bilbo dreamed of knitting gloves for feet, out of yarn every color the hoods and cloaks of his companions came in.</p><hr/>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <strong>Bofur</strong>
  </p>
</div><hr/>
<p>Bofur looked up from settling his pack and bedroll to see Thorin's toe peeping out from his sock, and his imagination immediately translated it to a different bit of anatomy, much more intimate and carnal, providing instant and unexpected fuel for fantasy.</p>
<p> Thorin was as safely unattainable as Dwalin, after all, and very nearly as tall, if not quite so broad. Little matter to imagination if legend regarding relative sizes of hands and hammers, toes and tools had any truth to it. Blunt, tender (rubbed-red) flesh peeking out of a darker sheath.... Bofur did not allow himself to squirm at the heat that bloomed in his groin and stiffened his own hammer, the quick clench of want that gripped the entrance to his mine. And at the same time as he was seized by a sense-picture of black hair spilling over his shoulders, the tickle-scratch of shorn short beard against the back of his neck, nether-beard against his nether-cheeks, being split by that thick imagined hammer and pounded into ecstasy, the frayed twist of yarn unravelling against red-rubbed toe snagged in his mind. The King had a hole in his sock. Thorin son of Thrain was mending a split in the seam of his boot with ordinary waxed thread and a curved steel needle he had likely forged and drawn himself. The contrast between image and reality was so incongruous as to be laughable. Simultaneously distant and immediate, air-dreaming and down to earth. Need, and want.</p>
<p>It made Bofur really look at Thorin. (Thorin the Dwarf, who was also King, and Dwalin's closest friend, leader of the Company, object of fantasy and jealousy and all manner of things, but at base, a Dwarf, just as Bofur was.)  There was a crease of concentration between Thorin's brows as he set his stitches, the Company settling down to industry around him. Bofur's own hands had found the corner of his tunic where he'd torn off the piece for Bilbo to have as a handkerchief, fingers teasing out thread from the weave to bind over the edge of the tear. He had a needle too, though his was bone, not steel. He'd been meaning to get to it. Was it deliberate, then? A 'leading by example' on Thorin's part? It didn't feel deliberate — or not the kind of outwardly on purpose with a point to prove that was the province of schoolmasters and pedants — it felt ... chosen but unforced, as if the Company was family somehow. Easy and comfortable company. Thorin was attending to his work, not watching the rest of the Company, oddly as at ease as Bofur had ever seen him. It was almost disconcerting, the unguarded look on his face, the easy line of his shoulders, the quick, competent movement of his fingers. </p>
<p>Bofur turned his attention to his own small project, letting the moment of perception go, tucking the thoughts into the capacious cupboards of his mind. Food for fantasy, oh yes. Food for thought as well.  Not just a king, a figure on a pedestal, political fantasy, but a person, toes wearing holes in his socks just like anyone.  And mending them too.</p><hr/>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <strong>Bifur</strong>
  </p>
</div><hr/>
<p>Bifur was carving tiny wooden shoes, meticulous pairs, boots and clogs and slipper-socks, pattens and polishing-scuffs. Seeing Thorin Oakenshield mending his gear had set Bifur’s hands moving. Watching Bofur watch Thorin (with that look in his eye, that nearly but not quite imperceptible quirk of lips, it wasn't the King he was focused on, no indeed) had kept him at it, a plethora of footwear. Bifur’s own gear was all in good order, so he could make rather than mend. He <em>could</em> make now, his fingers remembering their old skill, finding shapes in wood, bringing them forth. </p>
<p>Thorin tucked his mended sock neatly into his boot, then freed his other foot from encumbrance. His toes wiggled briefly, unconsciously, in the short grass of their camping spot, and Bifur saw the flash of startlement, of <em>want</em> in Bofur’s eyes before his cousin carefully focused on the bit of cloth in his hands. So that was the way the ore-seam tended. And, it appeared, there truly was a Thorin under the armor and reserve of the King.</p>
<p>Of course, Bifur knew there had to be, but knowing and seeing were not at all the same. Following Thorin's lead, Bifur soon had his own boots off, toes curling happily in the soft grass. It was nice to have a moment of simple connection with the ground. The ground seemed happy to connect with them as well. A good sign, Bifur thought, a very good sign.</p><hr/>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <strong>Dwalin</strong>
  </p>
</div><hr/>
<p>Dwalin was not looking at anyone’s Maker-blessed toes. Not Bifur’s angular ones, nor Bofur’s shapely ones, nor the Hobbit’s sturdy, furry ones. Most certainly not Thorin’s red-rubbed long ones stretching and flexing in the short grass. His own toes were curled tight in his own boots, and he was aware of them in a way he rarely was. He could take off his boots, but he wasn't going to. Not here, not now, never mind that feet were just feet, nothing male or female about them, like hands or knees or elbows. And neither his boots nor his socks needed attention. On the other hand, he certainly could go over all his weapons and their sheaths and straps. Plenty to keep himself occupied, and not thinking about any toes at all.</p><hr/>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <strong>Balin</strong>
  </p>
</div><hr/>
<p>Balin looked over the industrious Company (and now it was a Company, not just a collection of assorted Dwarves and other persons), observing the relationships they had settled into this evening. More mixing of the families and clans, which was a very good thing. For shelter they had a nicely deep space under a shelf of rock, sufficient for everyone — even the wizard — to be comfortably out of the rain. Oin and Gloin had gotten a fire going in the stone ring others had used before them, and already there were several pair of socks drying, chilled toes warming; Bilbo's among them. He and Ori were comparing something on their respective pages. Not so much mending today as making: Thorin weaving a bit of silver wire into a fine chain, Dwalin winding a length of steel wire into rings for repairing chainmail, Bifur carving, Bofur with the far-away look and silently moving lips that meant he was likely thinking up a new (almost certainly silly) song. The princes were looking after the ponies. With the rain, there would be no weapons-work this evening, but they didn't need it for finding harmony with each other — they had that now. </p>
<p>No need to detail everyone, since all were well and not unhappy. No need, for once, to worry. There would be more than enough time for that as they got further along. For now, he would take the comfort of fire, food, and company under good stone, and leave tomorrow’s challenges to tomorrow.</p><hr/>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
      <strong>Bombur</strong>
    </p>
</div><hr/>
<p>Bombur watched as Thorin picked out a rivet-pin and widened out — upset — one end with a few quick strikes of the small hammer on the equally small anvil from his kit. He’d never actually watched Thorin at smithcraft before, though he’d seen the king's work — he’d sighed over one of his cookpots often enough, far beyond even his, Bofur’s and Bifur’s purse combined — and very fine it was. It still startled him how ready Thorin was to aid any and all of them, Broadbeam or Longbeard or both, with his skill. A proper King, a proper Smith, not like some he could name behind them. </p>
<p>Now the rivet was through the holes, the hammer again precisely employed to peen down the other side to smoothly domed roundness. Thorin murmured a word with each strike, for strength in the rivet, strength in the whole of the ladle, strength and nourishment in the food it served, strength and health in the hand, the arm that wielded it, and joy to the spirit in its use. The whole of the tool-litany, which Bombur had heard of, but never before witnessed himself, had wondered, living in the poorer, disadvantaged parts of Ered Luin, if such spells had ever really existed outside of songs and tales. Bifur, he knew, had never doubted.</p>
<p>Thorin put the hammer down and ran his thumb over both sides of the repair, then checked the older rivets. He gave them all a tap on each side (again with a quiet word) and gave the entire ladle what Bombur could only call a caress, before presenting it back to Bombur with a faint smile. “That should do. Does it feel right to you?”</p>
<p>It felt solid, secure, and perfectly balanced, better than it ever had before. Bombur grinned and nodded vigorously. </p>
<p>Thorin smiled a little wider and gave an acknowledging nod in return. A work well done. Use it well. No need for words.</p>
<p>A few minutes later, Bombur scuffed his round-toed shoes through the remains of winter leaves, looking for mushrooms and sorrel to add to the breakfast pot. The Company had hardly stirred at the sound of early morning metalwork, (except Bilbo of course, though he just pulled his coat up around his ears and went back to sleep) but start building up the morning fire in the evening’s ashes and they were all a-bustle. The ladle hummed happily in his hand. It had always been a good tool — he wouldn't have brought it along otherwise — but now it was a better. Much better, if he was right in what he’d heard and seen.</p>
<p>He hoped Thorin remembered to put the same love and effort into his own tools as he did for his people’s.  And they all were his people, even Bilbo; even, oddly, Gandalf. Just as they were all Bombur’s now, the Longbeard King most definitely included. And there was a thing he’d never thought he'd have, much less acknowledge. </p>
<p>Humming an old, old children’s song, Bombur continued his search for good things to feed his companions with his renewed ladle.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p><br/>
Pin pen pan peen<br/>
Finest smithcraft ever seen<br/>
Brisket basket bucket bean<br/>
Khazad we, times fat or lean<br/>
Prince prance price preen<br/>
Pay the maker, don't be mean<br/>
Sip  sap soup tureen<br/>
Or feel our axes strong and keen<br/>
</p>
</div><hr/>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
      <strong>Gandalf</strong>
    </p>
</div><hr/>
<p>It was not often that Gandalf (Olorin that was, Mithrandir, Tharkûn, Stormcrow and so many other names, old and new, brief and lasting, once-true, now-true, never-true, missing the mark completely) considered embodiment. He was presently incarnate, had been in this form and flesh for most of an Age of the World. There was nothing new or unknown or even surprising about the body he wore. And yet, watching the Dwarves cavort in Elrond’s fountain, utterly comfortable in their skin, he was aware of his own body, separate from his self  yet not, a guise, a garment, a paradox of truth.</p><hr/>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Challenges, specific notes, and links to original posts:</p>
<p>Thorin -- Challenge: <a href="http://fan-flashworks.dreamwidth.org/471019.html">Metal</a><br/>-- I am sure the Dwarves knew of many more elements than might be easily determined, and no doubt had their own names for them, but I have no idea what those names might be.</p>
<p>Bilbo -- Challenge: <a href="http://fan-flashworks.dreamwidth.org/471019.html">Amnesty 24 - Warmth</a><br/>Bofur -- Challenge: <a href="https://fan-flashworks.dreamwidth.org/1462757.html">Toes</a> (Original)<br/>Bifur -- Challenge: <a href="https://fan-flashworks.dreamwidth.org/1463800.html">Toes</a><br/>Dwalin -- Challenge: <a href="https://fan-flashworks.dreamwidth.org/1464215.html">Toes</a><br/>Balin -- Challenge: Shelter, Bingo Prompt: <a href="https://fan-flashworks.dreamwidth.org/1927024.html">Toes</a><br/>-- Takes place a day or two after the earlier pieces, after the recounting of Azanulbizar, but before the Trolls or Rivendell.</p>
<p>Bombur -- Challenge: Pin or Pen. Bingo Prompt: <a href="https://fan-flashworks.dreamwidth.org/1927024.html">Breakfast</a><br/>Gandalf -- Challenge: <a href="https://fan-flashworks.dreamwidth.org/1497165.html">Disguise</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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